Taking on Sidemar
Honorio, Sterling was more reluctant to engage in the opening
moments than in previous bouts. By avoiding the big firefight,
Sterling also dropped the opening round on Sherdog.com’s
scorecard.

“I know he throws a lot of haymakers,” Sterling told Sherdog.com.
“I watched a couple of his videos, and he definitely goes for the
kill, so I wanted to be smart about entering in. I wanted to make
sure I picked my shots the right way, and I wanted to make sure I
gauged his speed to see how I could attack him.”

Attack he did in the second round after a takedown attempt from
Honorio. Sterling countered the attempt by turning the corner and
taking Honorio’s back. With a triangle latched onto the body,
Sterling secured the rear-naked choke, earning the submission at
4:05 of the second round.

“That’s my style man. Funk Master. That’s what I do,” Sterling
said. “Watch all my wrestling highlights in college and if anyone
shoots on me -- high crotch, single leg -- I sprawl and take that
corner and take people’s backs all the time. I guess I have
B.J. Penn
legs, kind of like Renan Barao did against Brad
Pickett.”

Since moving down to flyweight “Shorty Rock” Sean
Santella has won three straight bouts. His latest win came with
another title defense over Team Bombsquad’s Evan Velez.
It was far from easy though, as Santella walked away with a split
decision (48-47, 49-46, 47-48).

“I know that I finish strong,” Santella told Sherdog.com in the
locker room following the bout. “I was trying to push the pace. I
had his back. I definitely left a good impression. I know it was a
tough fight. Some of the rounds were close. But I landed more
shots. He did land some power shots but a lot of it was the crowd
going, ‘Ohh.’ I controlled the position and pushed the pace. I feel
like I was trying to finish the fight.”

After an injury forced David
Branch out of his middleweight title bout against champion
Tim
Williams, Dustin
Jacoby stepped in on short notice. In front of a hostile crowd,
Jacoby took advantage of the opportunity against “The South Jersey
Strangler.” After stacking Williams up against the cage early in
the first frame, Jacoby came down with a vicious left elbow from
the top, opening up a cut. The cut was right above the eye of
Williams, forcing the ringside physician to stop the bout. It gave
Jacoby the win at 4:04 in the first, making him the new CFFC
middleweight champion.

“No disrespect to Tim
Williams,” Jacoby said. “I know that would suck to lose that
way and for that to happen. At the same time I caused that cut. I
did what I had to do to win and I got out of there.”

Originally set to face Frank
Lester, CFFC welterweight champion George
Sullivan had prepared for a UFC veteran who stands less than 6
feet tall. After an injury forced Lester off the card, Sullivan was
matched with the 6-foot-4 Tenyeh
Dixon. It turned the bout into a scrap that Sullivan pulled out
via unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46) to retain his title.
After the fight he wasn’t that happy about it.

“Fighting Tenyeh at the last minute, how do you go from a 5-9 guy
to a 6-4 guy?” Sullivan asked. “It f----d all my training camp up,
all my ranges and everything. I think that had a lot to do with why
I couldn’t find my range today. Hitting a guy that’s that long just
kind of threw me off. I just couldn’t find it within my body to do
what I wanted it to do.”

With Kasheem
Peterson forced off the card for undisclosed reasons, Brandon
Becker took on late replacement Dave Spadell
Jr. Becker made short work of his new opponent, running him
over in a catch-weight bout that ended at 4:17 of the opening round
via TKO.

After scoring an impressive submission victory in his debut back in
April, Jonavin
Webb was back in the CFFC cage taking on Jason Lee.
Thanks in large part to his jiu-jitsu game, Webb outworked and
overwhelmed Lee over three rounds to earn the unanimous decision
(30-27, 30-27, 30-27).

A stalwart on the local MMA scene, Chris
Liguori garnered some of the loudest cheers of the night as he
took on Gert Kocani.
Liguori was never threatened over the course of three rounds,
earning a unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27).

Following a tough loss to “Chocolate Thunder” Shedrick
Goodridge, Michael
Wilcox returned to the cage to take on Zed
Mitchell. Wilcox took Mitchell down immediately and parlayed
his positioning into a quick TKO victory at 1:48 of the opening
round.

Bryan
Lashomb rebounded nicely following his first professional loss
to the CFFC flyweight champ Sean
Santella. Lashomb exploited his significant striking advantage
against Evan
Chmielski, eventually forcing a doctor stoppage at 1:51 in the
third round.

In the first women’s bout in CFFC history, Andria
Caplan and Gabrielle
Holloway also provided one of the more entertaining bouts on
the card. A back-and-forth bout through three rounds saw Holloway
get the better of Caplan with her striking. An inadvertent eye poke
in the third by Holloway forced the doctor to call an early end to
the bout, which Holloway won via technical decision (30-27, 30-27,
30-27].